Posts Tagged ‘cooking’

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MacGourmet

November 6th, 2009, posted in Food & Drink, Mac Stuff

I’ve been using a cool little Mac application for awhile now and I think it’s going to stay in the repertoire.

I’ll admit it, I’m an organizational nut. I like everything in its place, and I hate clutter. I also hate having to hunt for things. Isn’t it nice when you are looking for something and it’s right there at your fingertips? I also collect cookbooks, but within reason. They have to all fit into our one (big) bookcase. And since said bookcase is full, that means we now have a one-in-one-out policy now. If I come home with a new cookbook, one of the old ones just has to go. Makes it a bit better because I now really, really think about whether or not I “need” that new book or is it just an impulse buy.

But I have also collected a multitude of clippings from newspapers and magazines and on recipe websites (most notably the Food Network) as well as recipes from friends and family over the years. And those all ended up in a big binder.

So here’s the problem…make a recipe once…and six months later… or even sooner… and just try to find it again.

Enter MacGourmet.

I managed to copy over all of my clippings into MacGourmet. Many of them were from Bon Apetit and Gourmet Magazines and these can all be found online at Epicurious. Cool trick, Epicurious recipes can be imported directly into MacGourmet complete with picture!

Some I had to type in and others I found and was able to “clip” into MacGourmet and format properly.

I can either have my computer in the kitchen with me and use the recipe directly from the screen, or print it out. But seeing as how I am trying to reduce paper in my life, the former is working just fine.

So what about all those recipes in my own books? Easy. I just created entries in MacGourmet but instead of a recipe, they give me a book title and a page number to find it.

All neat and tidy, just the way I like it.

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Tinned Fish Casserole

October 29th, 2009, posted in Food & Drink

Ever had one of those days when you wished you hadn’t picked up the phone? I just did. I received some bad news, news I’d been expecting for about 6 months, but hoped wouldn’t come. There is a reason I call myself an optimistic pessimist. I hope for the best, but I always expect the worst, and over the past five years…well, it’s hard not to be pessimistic. Sometimes I wish I could just turn the clock back and start over.

So when you’ve had an ultra shitty day and end up deciding you don’t want to leave home because of it…but you’re trying to figure out what to do for dinner because really, the same cannelloni starts to pale after three days of eating it… turn to Granny’s recipes. Her tuna casserole that is.

Actually, what I make barely resembles her old recipe, but the bones are the same, I’ve just modified it over the years with whatever is available in the fridge, freezer and cupboard.

Regardless, it comfort food to the nines and on a shitty rainy day, after some shitty self-confidence crushing news, well, tuna/salmon casserole sounds good to me.

About 6 cups cooked rice
2 cans of tuna
2 cans of salmon
1 can of cream of mushroom soup
Equivalent of the above cream of mushroom soup can filled with milk
1 onion, chopped (or a bunch of green onions chopped)
About 4 good sized carrots, chopped
About 4 celery stalks, chopped
Whatever other veg you feel like putting in (peas work really well, my favourite actually, just didn’t have any today, green beans work well too. Corn or broccoli, not so much, they do something funny to the flavour balance.)
Fresh ground pepper
Maybe a dollop of dijon mustard
Perhaps some hot paprika

Mash up the canned fish in a bowl and add the veggies. Mix them up fairly well, then mix in the cooked rice.

In another bowl, mix the mushroom soup, milk, mustard, pepper, and paprika together.

Pour the soup mixture over the fish mixture and mix it with a spoon until relatively well combined. Smooth out the top and grate some parmesan over the top if you feel so inclined and have some in the fridge. I actually used a knob of asiago that I had tonight.

Shove it in a 375F oven for about an hour covered, and then remove the cover for 30 minutes until brown and crusty on top. It’s forgiving so you can cover or not, cook longer or shorter. Nothing really does any damage to it.

It’s not heavily spiced, but you can do that if you want, go nuts, add dill, parsley, thyme, any of those works well. It’s not all that exciting, but paired with a salad or as a side dish it is nice and comforting in a 1940′s kind of way. And it is fabulous warmed up for lunches.

So, when life seems shitty, wrap yourself into some of Granny’s comfort food and try to find a bright spot on the horizon.

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Appliance Shopping and Religion… Who Knew That the Two Were Connected?

September 18th, 2009, posted in Critical Thinking, Food & Drink, That's Life

We have a few appliances that are on their last legs. Our dishwasher gave out last year and we finally replaced it after Kirk repaired it several times. We’ve been wondering about our fridge as it has become rather loud and ice cream actually softens in the freezer. Our teensy microwave that basically only gets used to heat milk for my morning chai gave up its handle on opening one day. We’ve looked hard, but its the smallest microwave we’ve ever come across and there isn’t anything on the market that will fit in its spot. We have always hated our range hood.  But it’s the range itself that has finally driven us to look at new appliances all around.

A couple of weeks ago I encountered an unsettling problem with the oven as well as a simple irritation. The irritation was that if i preheated the oven, the timer wouldn’t function. Well, at least I still have my grandmother’s old bell timer so I could work around that one. But then after I pulled my muffins out of the oven and turned off the oven…. it turned itself back on…. six times! Can’t say I like that new feature much.

Last night Kirk cooked dinner and about a half hour after we had eaten and were sitting in the living room we heard a strange noise. Kirk went into the kitchen to investigate and discovered that the range hood fan had turned itself on. Figure that one out! That was a new symptom.

To fix the range will cost over $600, and we’ve already fixed it twice before. Time to look at new appliances with a serious eye.

So we have more or less settled on a package of GE Profile appliances. Our tough one is the fridge as we have a very limited amount of wiggle room. Can’t  be more than 31″ wide (therefore no side by sides or double door fridges), can’t be more than 66″ tall, and we want a bottom freezer this time. Seriously limits us in our choices, but we did find options in Kenmore, GE, LG, and Kitchen Aid.

With respect to the range, we want one with true convection, self cleaning, a solid cooktop (I hate pans that aren’t level) with a bridge element and a warming zone, and the controls on the front. I never understood having to reach across hot pots to turn things on and off. I think this is why the controls on our current range keep going wonky.

Now we come to the range hood. Since our microwave is starting to disintegrate, we considered an over the range microwave range hood combination until we discovered that we could get this little wonder with a convection/microwave. This would get rid of our range hood, our microwave, and our countertop convection oven all in one fell swoop.  Three appliances replaced with one, and cupboard and counter space freed up? How can we refuse?

So that took us down to Kenmore and GE Profile. I think we have more or less settled on the GE.

Where does religion come into play here? Just wait, I love this part.

So last night I was wondering if the GE appliances could be programmed for either F or C temperature readings. I have a lot of European cookbooks that provide ingredients in weights and cooking temperatures in Celcius and I always to prefer to cook in the actual measurements and temperatures that a recipe was printed in. The answer was yes, it would read in either. But as I was scanning the features I ran into this, check out the tenth line under “Controls”

range

What?

So I went on the hunt. And I found a blog about this “Feature”on Mano Singham’s Web Journal Entry on this topic.  I’m guessing that the video at the bottom of his blog post has probably incited some vicious debate on YouTube.

But, in the meantime, we have to cook our way through our freezer so we can order some new appliances….

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The Continuing Saga of the Search for the Perfect Cottage Cheese Muffin

September 17th, 2009, posted in Food & Drink

Darn, I thought I had it. I thought that dry curd cottage cheese might be the missing ingredient. And after they cooled down they were great. Soft nuggets of cottage cheese. They just needed a bit more flour to thicken them up and I thought I was there.

Unfortunately, after they sat for a day, those moist little nuggets turned into hard little nobs of dry cottage cheese.

So, dry curd cottage cheese is not the magic ingredient. And now I have half a container of dry curd cottage cheese in the fridge. Not sure what to do with that!

Anyway, here was the latest (failed) attempt.

3/4 dry curd cottage cheese
1/2 cup yogurt
2 Tbsp vegetable oil
3 (medium) eggs (I usually use 2 large but the grocery store was out of my usual eggs)
1 cup flour
1 Tbsp parmesan cheese, grated
2 Tbsp grated aged cheddar cheese
1 1/2 tsp baking powder
1/2 tsp baking soda
2 Tbsp sugar
1/2 tsp lemon juice
1/4 tsp vanilla
pinch of salt

mix dry stuff in one bowl, wet stuff in another, mix together until just moistened through. Pile into 6 greased muffin cups.

Bake at 375 for 20 minutes

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As Kirk Would Say “The Blue Ones are Better”

September 14th, 2009, posted in Food & Drink

Feeling BlueMmmmm, blueberries…. except that after awhile there always seems to be too many in the fridge Particularly when I’m alone for a week while Kirk is out of town. So what to do with three cups of blueberries that are perfectly ripe but I just can’t eat them all?

Blueberry crumb bars! That’s what! Mmmmm….

Crust:

2 cups all purpose flour
1 cup old-fashioned oats
1 cup (packed) golden brown sugar
½ teaspoon salt
¼ teaspoon ground cinnamon
1 cup (2 sticks) chilled unsalted butter, cut into 1/2-inch cubes
½ cup sliced almonds

Filling:

3 cups fresh blueberries (about 15 ounces)
1 cup blueberry preserves (10 to 11 ounces) (this was my jam from last year when I didn’t know what to do with them all!)
1 tablespoon all purpose flour
1 teaspoon finely grated lemon peel

For crust:

Preheat oven to 375°F. Butter bottom of 13x9x2-inch baking pan.

Whisk flour, oats, sugar, salt, and cinnamon in large bowl. Add 1 cup butter; cut in until mixture sticks together in small clumps.

Transfer 2 cups to medium bowl; mix in almonds and reserve for topping.

Press remaining crumb mixture evenly onto bottom of prepared pan. Bake crust until golden and just firm to touch, about 20 minutes.

Cool crust for 10 minutes before filling.

For filling:

Mix all filling ingredients in medium bowl.

Spread evenly over crust in pan, then sprinkle reserved topping over top of the fruit filling.

Bake bars until filling bubbles thickly at edges and topping is golden brown, about 40 minutes; cool in pan on rack. Cut lengthwise into 4 strips, then cut each strip into 6 pieces, forming 24 bars.

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Only thing I’d change? I wasn’t wild about the almonds in there. But I’m not really big on nuts in baked goods. Take ‘em or leave ‘em. Either way, these are pretty yummy.

Update: One caveat. These are better the day you make them. If you put them in a sealed container they go soft and I can’t say I care for them as much. So if you have a lunch or something and need to take a bar, great for a group. But they didn’t seem to keep all that well.

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